Age of Wonders 3’s GDC 2013 Gameplay Trailer Shows the Cleansing Magic of the Theocrat

Age of Wonder 3's Theocrat class has a lot to contend with in the new pre-alpha gameplay video that was shown at GDC, but whoever said that strategy games were meant to be easy?

The video runs us through some of the intricacies of playing on a map as the Theocrat, who is tasked with cleansing the lands around his kingdom from a blight, protecting his people from the forces of evil, and clearing their gold mines of bandits.

The Theocrat can start researching different skills that will help augment his battle prowess and make him better equipped to lead his armies out into the word, but first he must cleanse the blight around the kingdom in order to increase the people's happiness. This is as easy as queuing up the skill for use when the next turn allows its activation.

Once the lands are cleansed, the Theocrat is free to focus on battling the forces of darkness that lie in wait in a dragon's graveyard while he sends a battalion to the gold mines to clear it of human scoundrels. Battles can either be fought manually, in which case you'll zoom in and fight a turn-based battle, or automatically, with choices being made by the computer.

It's cool to see all of this play out in real-time and Age of Wonders is shaping up to be a pretty nifty iteration in the strategy role-playing game series that seeks to break from fantasy tropes and cliches. Check out the video below and let us know if you'd play this game!